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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · What's your recommendation for rechargeable batteries? | |
ashton lamont wrote
I'd also tried various cheap badged rechargeable but they were hopelessly unreliable and short-lived. Its all well and good suppliers of theses replacing them or refunding them but thats no good at all when you get a lot of fails whilst trying to work for a living.
Pete
While I get what you are saying, I have faced this situation a lot of times and come up with an alternate position.
There are a number of things in my weird and wonderful interests that there just seems to be no proper, long lived product that satisfies the requirements even if the ones that fall short are very expensive and still fail.
One such weird example is I make my own fuel for my truck.... as do others.
The fuel being non petroleum based eats the soft/ non metal fuel lines. The " good" stuff can be over $50 a meter but it still fails only more slowly than the alternatives. Normal fuel would have the lines last the life of the vehicle and beyond.
As there is no proper permanent soloution to the problem, I use the cheapest hose out there. I have watched it and it lasts about 16-18 Months before it either leaks or goes very hard and causes air leaks. Knowing that's it's life span, I work on the aircraft principal of time before overhaul. Aircraft parts are replaced well before they have a chance to fail and so I simply change the $4 worth or hose on the truck every year between Christmas and new year when I do all the other annual servicing like diff and gearbox oils, lubing and adjusting cables etc.
The cheap hose is fine as long as it's renewed every year. The expensive stuff isn't a permanent cure, there isn't one, so really I spend about 10 min a year more doing easy work for about 1/10th of the cost and get an entirely reliable and quality result.
I adopt a similar outlook with other things. I use lesser quality knowingly because I am aware of the limitations but the price difference between good and cheap is worth it. I also find that having some cheaper things new and fresh looking is better than having longer lasting and more beat up in appearance.
There is also disparities in products like their capacities. I wired up a DIY high power solar array back in summer. To carry the power I was pumping through this setup would have required heavy and very expensive cable. Looking up the wiring charts, I saw that using 2 lots of the standard lighter cable gave me even more capacity than the heavy wire AND, was literally half the price for 2 lots of the lighter stuff than one run of the heavy stuff. Add to the fact the lighter stuff was easier to hook up, worked better with connectors and breakers, allowed me to split the array.
I often find this. The High end product is completely disproportionate in price to the 3/4 product enabling you to buy two of the lesser product and actually get more for your money than having one of the top end line.
As far as batteries go, I load test the things every so often anyway because they do fall over, they all do. The nickel metals sure leave the old Ni-cads for dead no matter what people say about Nicad being more robust. Some will last forever and some fail quickly. That's one problem with rechargeable, one cell goes or is weak and they stuff up the whole pack.
I charge all my cells up and then go through them one at a time putting a dead short on them and measuring the current and voltage output.
Amperage is a much better indication of a cells health than Voltage so by measuring the discharge current of the cell, I can easily spot the weak ones. I also monitor the voltage at the same time and any cell that the voltage plummets on is also sure to be stuffed so depending on how crook they are, they either get pitched out or painted so they are only relegated to the Myriad of non critical battery powered devices around the house such as Torches, doorbell, Christmas decorations, clocks,remotes etc that have low power requirements.
I'll test these latest Ikea batteries if I get a short cycle with them although the new Charger I got has a built in testing feature which seems reliable in picking out sub standard cells.
I tested the ones it rejected from my old batch and while most of them weren't stuffed, they were down on what they should have been which I was happy about as the thing seems to be able to weed the sub standard cells out and only let through those that are properly healthy.
For the price of the Ikea cells, I really wouldn't be that fussed about replacing them every year or 2. I have found that this sort of more frequent replacement suits me as it keeps thing new and reliable and does away with the thought process of having to get the longest life possible out of everything.
If something starts to go bad, Chuck the lot, buy more cheapies and not have to worry again and know you have things that are fresh and new and will give the best performance possible till the replacement time comes ( soonish) again.
For me, this sort of change of outlook has worked pretty well on everything I have tried it on and I have so far been pleasantly surprised by everything lasting beyond expectation and certainly being the better option financially.
There are so many things that I have need of that you just cannot get good, lasting, reliable quality in at any price so I don't bother now. By cheap but decent and just replace frequently and as necessary.
It's a throw away world now, I have given up on fighting what I can't change in that regard.
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Jun 21, 2017 at 09:41 AM |
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